Inspiration

Inspiration

Premeditatio malorum

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Today´s article begins with these words in Latin: premeditatio malorum, which we could translate as "pre-studying future evils".

And even though it sounds like a joke (to Spanish-speaking people, at least), like those fake Latin phrases we used to read in Asterix comic books, it turns out it´s a real thing, an expression from centuries ago. It´s a technique used by the ancient Stoic philosophers; I learned it in a Stoicism training course by Autognosis (thanks, Luis!)

(Flowers drawn by Eva, the artist in our family, on our kitchen whiteboard.)

This week, a few things happened around me that threw me off in a rather big way; things that made me consider situations I wouldn´t even have thought of until recently. And thinking about them, without noticing, I saw myself in the worst-case scenario. Which is exactly what this exercise is about: allowing ourselves a certain amount of time to recreate that situation we´re scared to see happening.

But not in a masochistic way, with the intention of suffering more, but, paradoxically, in order to suffer less. When we become worried about the future, we know only too well that just telling our mind not to worry doesn´t work at all; we´re going to worry anyway. So, what this technique proposes is not to run away from that thought, or to try and cover it, but to give it a chance to surface. This way, by visualising and imagining the worst-case scenario as if it were actually happening, we let ourselves integrate it, process it, and accept more peacefully the possibility (even if remote) of it happening.

Moreover, this technique can also help us to be better prepared for whatever may happen, or even to reduce the probability of it happening, if there are things in our power to try and avoid it. This is what I did as well, without noticing: I went what would I do in this situation? How would I manage? What resources would I have? And from there, I made a number of hypothetical decisions that provided me with a clearer picture of that imaginary future, which no longer looked that terrible.

At the end of the day, it´s all about "decatrastophizing" that future threat by bringing it down to earth, giving it a shape and coming up with an action plan that puts our mind at ease, as we position ourselves at the helm as opposed to staying adrift.

For best results, ideally, this exercise should be done in writing, reserving a reasonable amount of time (not too long) to get yourself in the situation, imagine all the details and observe the thoughts and emotions that start bubbling up. What options do you have?

You can write it all in three separate colunns:

  • Situation: your fear, the worst possible scenario.
  • Prevention: what is under your control to prevent this issue from happening?
  • Management: if it ends up happening, what is under your control to solve or mitigate the issue?

This way, by facing the threat and reflecting on it, anxiety paradoxically decreases instead of increasing. Because we go from being preoccupied about the problem to being occupied with building the solution. And on top of that, as it´s all written down, once the exercise is over, our mind can free itself up from this topic and focus again on other things.

As a final note, let´s all remember that we are stronger than we think. And as Marcus Aurelius, one of the great Stoic philosophers, once said:

Do not worry about the future.
You will face it with the same weapons
with which you face the present.

Quote of the day

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Do you like famous phrases and quotes? If you´ve been reading this blog for a while, you know that I do like them; I often include some in my articles, though I try not to overdo it.

Today, as I started my computer, Google showed me a familiar quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson :

What lies behind us
and what lies before us
are tiny matters compared to
what lies within us.

Beautiful, isn´t it? I looked up more quotes from the same author, and found loads; here´s my selection.

(Photo taken this weekend, on our visit to Northern Ireland with Merche, Nacho and Miguel. Thanks, guys!)

People do not seem to realise
that their opinion of the world
is also a confession of character.

What you do speaks so loudly
that I cannot hear what you say.

Without ambition one starts nothing.
Without work one finishes nothing.
The prize will not be sent to you.
You have to win it.

Once you make a decision,
the universe conspires to make it happen.

And one that I found surprising:

Make your own Bible.
Select and collect all the words and sentences
that in all your readings have been to you
like the blast of a trumpet.

One foot in front of the other

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It´s the beginning of another week, and I imagine it like a blank sheet of paper to fill in day by day, if possible, in nice and neat handwriting.

Sometimes, we go through stages where there´s barely time for anything else but whatever is indispensable each day. And that´s OK, it´s what needs to be done.

But be careful, or you might get stuck there for much longer than you need to...

I found this quote in a book I keep at home; I haven´t been able to identify the author:

Don´t spend so long concentrating
on putting one foot in front of the other
that you forget to look where you are going.

(Photo taken approximately a year ago, walking down from the Alhambra towards Granada´s city centre.)

In other words: take your eyes off the path every now and then, look up, and check whether you´re really going in the direction that you want.

Setting a destination will help you to take firmer and better-aimed steps. And stopping to sharpen the saw every now and then will give you the clarity and tools that you need to keep making progress.

So, tell me, where are you going? And what steps are you taking this week to get closer to your destination?

Reset button

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Once again, the weekend has gone by really quickly,, and I´m left with the feeling that I haven´t done half of the things I would have liked. Which probably means I had planned roughly twice as many things as I can realistically fit into a weekend.

Does this happen to you as well? It´s quite normal; us humans are awful at estimating the time it takes us to complete a task or project (more on this topic here).

For me, a common consequence of not being realistic with my time is that I often end up resting and sleeping less, as there are things I don´t want to leave undone, even when the day is coming to an end. And so, without noticing, I get myself into a vicious cycle of lack of sleep that only brings about more problems...

This week I caught myself in that cycle again. And I´m the only one who can get me out of it.

Sometimes we feel that we have no other choice but to fill our days with tasks and keep going until we drop from exhaustion.. Or maybe we´re already exhausted, but we don´t listen to our body. For how much longer? Do we have to wait until life gives us a fright before we start taking care of ourselves?

The good news is that life (or, rather, our body) sends us signals, it shows us when the pace we´re going at is no longer sustainable. The key is learning to listen, so that, once those signals start to appear, we can notice them and take action.

But the thing is, in order to listen to ourselves, first we need to create a little bit of silence. And being continuously surrounded by noise and distractions, as it happens nowadays, doesn´t help with that at all. We need to make a conscious effort to "disconnect" from the outside for a little while, and get the chance to connect with our inner side to take stock of how we´re really feeling.

This reminds me of two things: first, the opening sentence in Desiderata: "Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence"... If this was already true approximately a century ago, there´s no doubt it´s truer now than ever.

And second, this quote I thought I had already shared, but apparently hadn´t:

Almost everything will work again
if you unplug it for a few minutes,
including you.

Anne Lamot

And if instead of a few minutes it´s a few hours, or days, or even weeks, that´s even better.

(Poster seen in an Avoca shop: "offline is the new luxury". This phrase would deserve its own full article; maybe one day I´ll write it.)

Now, what about you? Do you need to press the reset button?

(Almost) untranslatable words: workout

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As you already know, every once in a while, I like to write on this blog about a word or expression I find particularly accurate in English (or Spanish) and which I think loses strength and meaning when translated into Spanish (or English, depending on the case).

Today, we´re adding one more word to our list of untranslatables ; an English word that´s very widely used, and I´d say not only among English-speaking folks: workout. The dictionary translates it as "ejercicio" (exercise) or "entrenamiento" (training), but those two words, in my opinion, are a bit vague and generic, while workout conveys something a lot more tangible: each specific training session, each period of time dedicated to exercising. And that involves a certain amount of work, which is implicit in the word itself, as it derives from the verb -to work.

(Photo of a sign in my office building, encouraging people to take the stairs instead of the elevator: "Burn calories, not electricity. Take the stairs.")

Indeed, exercising takes effort, and not only in the sense of being physically tiring (which, once you show up and get started, is probably not that big of a deal). The hardest part is staying consistent, and keeping up the progress without waiting to feel like doing it, because, let´s be realistic, you´re almost never going to feel like doing it... (By the way, in case you didn´t know, that´s completely normal; elite athletes don´t feel like going out for a run every day either, and they do it anyway. That´s why it´s so important to create routines to make things easier for ourselves and help us achieve our goals).

The good news is that all that work done over the weeks, months, and years finally has its rewards: when we work out regularly, we keep ourselves in better shape, we feel better, and are able do more things. In other words, our quality of life improves.

So, what if we could apply the same reasoning to other types of exercise, not only physical?

This all came up because I heard a phrase the other day that I believe is worth sharing. I´m not sure whether it´s original from the person I heard it from, a coach called Alexias Anderson; it was part of a talk on Adaptive Intelligence (a key topic given the times we´re living in, accelerated and ever changing, so I´m I´ll be posting more about this for sure):

Every unfamiliar experience is a workout.

I really like the parallel this lady draws here: in the same way exercise is uncomfortable and tiring for your body, but beneficial in the long term, having to figure things out in an unfamiliar environment is uncomfortable and tiring for our brain, but also beneficial in the longt term. It allows the brain to learn to adapt to different situations, become more flexible, and develop a wider repertoire of strategies, responses, and actions depending on the scenario.

And, as it is the case with physical exercise, the key is to do it often, even if it´s in small doses. There´s no need to do anything too radical, the idea is to progressively get exposed to experiencies and activities where our auto-pilot is of no use, so we need to figure things out in order to keep going. It may be something as simple as using a different route to get back home (with no Google Maps!), starting a new hobby or learning a new skill that has very little to do with what we´re naturally good at.

A silly example I can think of is related to the songs we sing in our workplace choir: I´m usually in the soprano group, but lately we´ve been having very low attendance, so for some of the songs, I´ve had to move to the Alto line... It´s astounding how much extra energy it takes me to learn these new versions of the songs; I find it super hard.

But as we said before, the good news is that all this extra energy expense has its rewards, and in my opinion, the reward is twofold. On the one hand, by intentionally putting ourselves in situations that are somewhat uncomfortable, we progressively increase our tolerance to discomfort, and this can give us a lot of freedom, and also open up options in our daily life. And on the other hand, when life inevitably brings us big moments of change with the capacity to shake our world and knock us out of place, we will be a lot better prepared, with resources to better weather the storm and even take advantage of the circumstances.

What do you think of this idea? In which ways do you give your body, and your mind, a workout?

Making life wider

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Happy Easter to all of those celebrating!

(I´m afraid I´m not very original, every year I open with this very same sentence... If you feel like reading my thoughts on Easter from previous years, you will find them here, here and here.)

This week, I´ve had the luxury of being on holidays, enjoying family time and the opportunity to do things at my own pace (or at least, less hurriedly than usual).

(Photo of the interior of Galway Cathedral, which we visited a few days ago. The outside is quite simple, but the inside is really beautiful in my opinion, and it came in very handy on this trip as a temporary shelter from the rain.)

In these accelerated times we live in, having the power to slow down for a few days is indeed a true luxury... A luxury that´s absolutely necessary, I dare say, even though we´re not always able to see it. Creating space to recover our strength, to refocus on what´s truly important, to enjoy the little (and the big) things that life brings to us.

Today, I´m inviting you to do a bit of reflection; let´s see what you think of this quote:

Everyone tries to make life longer,
when what we should really do is make it wider!

Luciano de Crescenzo

What are those things that make your life "wider"? How do you feel when you dedicate time and attention to them? And how much time and attention are they actually getting from you?

Untranslatable expressions: to carve out time

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Today we´re adding another expression to our particular list of untranslatables. This time, the original is in English: to carve out time, and even though we have an expression with equivalent meaning in Spanish, sacar tiempo, which we could translate as "to extract time", I believe the English version paints a more vivid image, and therefore, it´s a. much more powerful metaphor .

Literally speaking, "to carve something out" involves working with a chisel and mallet, removing portions of a solid block of wood or stone, in order to give it a shape. As you can imagine, it´s a task that requires intention, attention and great skill; you need to have a very clear idea of what you intend to do, and have the knowledge on how to do it.

Now, transferring that concept to how we manage our time, we often find ourselves in a situation where our calendar is completely full, reflecting our responsibilities at work, at home, with our family, etc., plus another long list of tasks and commitments that we burden ourselves with (and we still don´t think it´s enough!). Our society nowadays values and rewards being super busy all the time, so we have normalised that way of life, together with the stress that comes along with it. "There are not enough hours in the day" is another go-to expression in English that´s a symptom of this big problem.

That´s why we find it so difficult to establish new habits to help us improve our health and wellbeing; we´re already exhausted, and we feel there´s no time for anything else. And that´s why I think this metaphor of the chisel and mallet is so relevant here: it´s not a question of simply "making time"; it´s about using that time strategically, building something with it, something that´s going to benefit us more than continuing to do everything the same way as before. And that requires intention, attention and a great skill, as well as consistency, to keep up the habit afterwards.

The reason I mention all this is because I´ve been wanting for some time to resume my old habit of reading, as I´ve kind of abandoned it in recent times. And want to resume it, among other reasons, because I believe it´s both more difficult than ever and more important than ever to keep it alive. I don´t have time right now to list all the benefits of reading (I encourage you to look them up, they´re impressive), but what I can do is share a quote from Dr. Seuss that I saw in a well-known bookstore in Dublin, and that I find very fitting:

"The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go".

What about you? What would you like to carve out time for? And what´s preventing you from doing it?

Life is like a camera

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Ladies and gentlemen, today´s article is number 250 in BinaryWords 🙂

250 reflections on a variety of topics, linked by the same common thread: personal and professional growth, which, in my opinion, always go hand in hand.

I remember that, during the first few months of writing this blog, back in 2021, I used to get inspiration from the pictures and posters I had around the house to write some of the articles (like, for example here, here and here), as well as dusting off some quotes I had found in greeting cards, fridge magnets and even newspaper clippings or publicity leaflets. I realised that, without really noticing, I had been gathering inspiring materials for years, though I had never thought of sharing them until then.

And given that inspiration can be found literally anywhere, over the years, I´ve been developing the habit of staying always alert, with my radar on, and taking photos of interesting things I bump into when I´m out and about. I´ll admit that I´m a total disaster when it comes to taking pictures of people (and even a bigger disaster, if possible, when it comes to appearing in those pictures myself), but if you look at my gallery, you´ll see that it´s full of apparently random photos with the potential of maybe one day helping me to convey an idea.

Today, browsing that gallery, I found this photo of a poster I found in a shop years ago, comparing life to a photo camera. Interestingly, physical cameras are in fashion again nowadays, with their flash and their buttons, as opposed to taking photos with your phone... This new revival of old devices can be a topic for another day.

Well, here you go, I hope the simile is understandable in Spanish, even though some of the word plays get lost in translation:

Life is like a camera.
Focus on what is important.
Capture the good times.
Develop from the negatives.
And if things don´t work out - just take another shot.

A wish for the year

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2026 is here, Happy New Year!

The girls and I came back last night after spending a few days in Spain, where the holidays continue until after January 6th (the Three Wise Men). Here in Ireland, the holidays are over, and it´s time to return to school (or in my case, to work), so we´re going through re-education.

(Photo taken a few days ago in Madrid, in a park called Retiro, which is Spanish for "retreat". Some day I´ll tell you about my end-of-year "double retreat".)

Looking for an inspirational quote to set up the year for a good start, I bumped into this one from Neil Gaiman, and I feel it´s the perfect fit for me right now; I hope you like it too:

I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing Something.

So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.

Whatever it is you're scared of doing, Do it.

Make your mistakes, next year and forever.

What do you think? Do you see yourself practising this? Coincidentally, the theme I´ve chosen for myself this year is the word PRACTICE, so it fits perfectly, especially the part about not worrying that it´s not perfect. Now, I´m aware this is going to be a big challenge for me, but I´m also fully convinced it will be worth it.

What about you? Do you accept the challenge of making mistakes?

"Crisitunity"

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Today, I got this daily quote as a present from Google:

Your big opportunity may be right where you are now..

Napoleon Hill

And it reminded me of a post I wrote on Facebook years ago, back when I used to write on Facebook instead of a blog (big mistake: now I no longer have access to my own posts, except when Facebook decides to show me a random "memory" and I take a screenshot, like in this case).

(Photo of a bunch of multicolour lanterns in San Francisco´s Chinatown)

I don´t know exactly when I wrote it; I reckon it was around 2009. The title I gave it was "Interesting times", a heading that I think is also very appropriate for the times we´re living in now, so here you go:

... But I don´t like being this way, I don´t like living as a pessimist, so I prefer searching through popular wisdom to try and find a different way of looking at things. And a phrase came into my mind, something about the Chinese using the same word for crisis and opportunity... Thanks to Saint Google, I found the graphical representation for those two words:

Simplified Chinese:
危机 (Crisis)
机会 (Opportunity)

Traditional Chinese:
危機 (Crisis)
機會 (Opportunity)

The key here is that the last ideogram in crisis is the first one in opportunity, so they´re not exactly the same, it´s more that one can develop into the other: in each crisis, we can find an opportunity.

The way I see it, the word crisis is passive: a crisis is something that comes upon you, and that you cannot control. But the word opportunity is a call to action, a call to react to what is happening, to do something about it. 

So, as always, the decision is ours: we can choose to see these "interesting times" as a worldwide crisis in which we´re simply the victims, or we can choose to see them as an opportunity, a wake-up call, the push that we need to rethink our approach to life and start making conscious and responsible decisions, learn from our mistakes and adapt to the new times.

What are your thoughts on this? What examples do you have, from your own life, where a crisis turned into a big opportunity? I have a few, so I´m sure you have them too.

By the way, the made-up word in the title, "crisitunity", was apparently invented by Homer Simpson, in an episode where Lisa told him about the Chinese using the same word for both things... And even though now we know it´s not exactly like that, this is still a really interesting idea, and a good example of how our language often determines our way of thinking.